Our Travel Blog

I know the titles get worse, but it’s hard to come up with new ones!!

After another great nights sleep we headed off to breakfast, as usual a visit to the omelette station for me and this ship has pea-meal bacon so there goes any hope of a healthy breakfast. Lyn is doing far better with cereal and fruit!

Overnight we cruised to Vinden, still in Bulgaria, docking around 830AM. It seemed pretty dark in the cabin, this was due to the fact that we had tied up alongside another boat. After breakfast we had to wait a while as the other boat decided it wanted to move off! We went up on the open deck to watch the manoeuvres. There was just one crew member (Captain) doing all the work. The ship has three propulsion systems, all of which are controlled by swivelling controls with throttles attached so the boat can move in any direction, including side ways. Makes docking look very easy.

This morning were left to our own devices (deserted)! We had docked right in the town, and a short walk took us to the central square. The town was only about 35,000 people, so fairly small. It had the air of a peaceful riverside community. Unlike other place we have been, this was a more modern town with very few ancient buildings.

One disadvantage of no guide, particularly with the language issue, is no information about what you are seeing! One of the memorials did house a Geocache, so we headed there first!

Still with Memorials, we found that the one below was another memorial to the fighters of the Serbo Bulgarian war in 1885

There was a central fountain with flower gardens around the outside.

After lunch we will head out for guided coach tour.

It’s now after lunch, we boarded our coach for a one hour drive through the countryside to the town of Belgradchik. Here were some rock formations that have become pretty famous over the last few years.

In addition the Romans came across theses formations in the second century, and decided the location was ideal as a lookout across the Danube. We had to do some climbing up to the fort, there were 3 levels and I got as far as the second level. Rain stopped play as far as the third level was concerned!!

The photos would have been better had I remembered to put the memory card back ! The following pictures were taken with the phone.

Some groups of pictures below, first the rocks.

The Romans used the natural rock formation as a basis for their fort

Looking down on the town of Belgradchik.

Next we are off to Serbia

We both managed a good nights sleep last night after the Folk Night. Below are a couple of pictures of the group.

We hadn’t moved since our 10 minute cruise across the Danube to Bulgaria last night. After breakfast we headed out on a gentle walking tour of the city. The “gentle walking tour” differed from the walking tour in so much that we had a coach trip into town, the other walked. Maybe later in the week we’ll be recovered enough to dispense wit the coach!

The first noticeable thing about Bulgaria is the written language. In Romania they used the Latin alphabet, and it was quite easy to translate a lot of the words. Here they use the Cyrillic alphabet, any form of translation fails!!

I always thought that the Cyrillic alphabet was a product of Russia, I was wrong! It started in Bulgaria in the 9th century and spread to neighbouring countries, as far east as Mongolia. It is credited with saving the identity (and country) of Bulgaria.

We docked near the town of Rousse or Ruse, Link and took a coach up into the centre. From here started the walking tour, mainly around the main square. Rousse has it’s own “Statue of Liberty” built in 1909 to celebrate the countries release from the Otterman empire.

Below are a couple of pictures, unfortunately the front view was directly into the sun, so there is a second view from the rear!

Another historic monument in the square is to the 5th Danube Infantry who took part in the Serbo Bulgarian war of 1885

There are many buildings around the perimeter of the square.

After all our strenuous (!) walking, our guide decided we needed fortification in the form of cake and coffee. The cake was to be the famous Garash cake, this was created by the same person who created the famous Sacha Torte in Vienna, but this time he varied the recipe quite a bit. It was created without flour, without oil, but with a lot of butter, with walnuts, cocoa and a lot of chocolate. It was WAY better than the original, light, moist and very chocolatey! I found the original heavy, dry and fairly tasteless.

Below is a picture of the restaurant.

Once the cake was devoured we did a little more exploring, and then back to the bus to return to the boat.

After a (light) lunch, the boat got underway and we headed westwards along the Danube.

None of the staterooms have balconies per se, what they do have is a wall to wall, floor to ceiling panoramic window split horizontally. The top half of the window can be lowered with a touch of the button and you now have a balcony! This is great as it increases the size of the room, but still gives that outside feeling.

The rain continued last night, so we made a quick dash across the road for dinner at the same place we ate the first night. Not sure whether jet lag is still playing with us, but we both had problems sleeping between 1AM and 4AM. We thought we’d suffer for that later in the day, but we felt fine.

Our baggage had to be placed outside our room by 730AM for collection and transport to the ship ahead of us. About 2 minutes after we put it out, we left the room and it was gone! This was a little worrying as every other service in the hotel either took hours to complete, or was never completed! Our first thought that someone else had decided to “acquire” them, but then we found whole group of bags by the elevator!

It appears that all 180 cruise passengers were staying at the hotel, which made for a busy breakfast.

Today’s plan was to drive to the day house of Nicolae Ceaușescu, evidently he wasn’t satisfied with the 1100 room building we saw the other day. The house, as expected, in true communist style, was beyond lavish. Unfortunately no photography was allowed inside. Below is an outside view

From here we went on a tour of the city, which we had done on the the tuk-tuk. We got got far more information from the tuk-tuk driver!!

We then drove into the old part of the city where we had a little free time to explore and get some lunch.

We headed into the old city by foot and found the following.

A very small church with a long name Archangels Michael and Gabriel Church with some amazing ceilings

Some Murals on the side of buildings

The National Bank of Romania

And a sidewall lunch

After lunch, it was back on the coach for a quick visit to the parliament building (again), then off to find the boat, which was about 90 minutes south.

We were lucky in that we were the first of 5 coaches to arrive at the boat, so check in was easy. Our baggage was already in the cabin when we got there! This boat is very similar to the one we were on a couple of years ago. The main difference is that we don’t have the drinks package, however there is free wine and beer with dinner AND we were given 100 Euro ($156Cdn, $112US, 84Pounds) each by our travel agent to spend on any onboard items(booze?)

Tonight it’s off to the lounge for a Romanian folk show. Whoops, got that wrong we just took a 10 minute cruise across the Danube and we’re now in Bulgaria, so we went to a Bulgarian Folk show which was very entertaining. Time for sleep!!

We headed out for a meal last night, although we are pretty much in the centre of the city, restaurants are difficult to find. This is in stark contrast to other parts of the world, where cities are flooded with them!! Finally finished up at “Ryans Pub”….. how Romanian can you get!

Today our plan was to visit a local heritage village. First strike against was the rain that was forecast for 1500 started at 1100! Undeterred we grabbed an Uber. I must admit to liking Uber. The same app as we use at home works flawlessly here, there are usually cars less than 5 minutes away and no cash is involved, it’s all done through the app. The app gives the real time position of the car on a map so you exactly when it will arrive. Taxis here are notorious for gouging tourists!

We arrived at the village which is about 14Ha (35 acres) in size. The buildings in the village had been transported from various areas of the country and had been renovated as required. All looked promising until we went to enter the first building… it was locked. So were all the others. Perhaps we were too early in the season, I don’t know. Below are some pictures with brief descriptions.

Below is a typical country house set up from the 16th century with its outbuildings.

We didn’t get to visit Transylvania, but at least we got to see a Church from the area.

Today’s Nature shot.

Would you rather be a sheep or a shepherd in the winter months?

This “home” is on skids so that it can be dragged around in the snow. This is where the shepherd lived as chasing sheep all day.

Many of the properties had decorative fencing around them

Another view through a window, this time of a craft room. It looks a lot tidier than Lyn’s! (running for cover)

While on the subject of crafts, there were a number of artisans around the village. This table was full of crochet!

A slightly more modern house from 1876, now with a tin roof and concrete construction (Spot the raindrop on the lens)

Thankfully the rain wasn’t too heavy so we were able to see most of the village. After a quick tour through the souvenir shop we summoned an Uber for the trip back to the hotel and a late lunch.

After lunch we decided to walk down to the concert hall as it is supposed to be quite impressive inside. Well the plan failed again. Outside the hall were a group of High School students having prom photos taken, and inside……. well we don’t know that as the building was closed. We assume in preparation for an upcoming concert.

When we got back to the hotel we checked in with the cruise rep and learnt that there would be a get together tonight at 7PM tonight for a welcome get together. Unfortunately we also learnt that our baggage had to be placed out side the room by 730AM for collection. We will depart the hotel at 9AM for a(nother) tour of the city, and then drive down to the Danube, which is about an hour away to board the boat.

Well, with a seven hour time difference, jet lag reared its ugly head. An early(ish) night last night led to a 12 hour sleep! Lyn still has the lingering cough which leaves her a little breathless after short walks, but it is improving. Originally we had planned to take a tour up into Translyvania to see the castles, but all of the tours were 12+ hours long, so we decided that may not be a good idea. We started looking around for some sort of city tour (unfortunately Bucharest does not have a Hop-on-Hop-Off bus. We eventually found a tik-tuk tour which looked ideal, unfortunately there were no tours available until Saturday. While I was on the site there was a pop-up chat window, so I asked if there was any chance of a tour today… there was. There was a tour already in progress that would finish at our hotel, so we grabbed it.

Looking good amongst the Mercedes, Range Rovers and Audis!

We met our guide and were immediately impressed by the quality of his English, very easy to understand.

Although our hotel was in the down town area, there didn’t appear to be much of interest. We were wrong, within a few hundred feet of the hotel there were a number of sites. As usual more pictures than words from me, if you are interested in more detailed history, the web can help. Here is a link to the Communist Era

St Joseph Cathedral

A stone commemorating the Popes visit

Romanian Athenaeum Concert Hall at the end of the Avenue

Bucharest Lutheran Church

The tuk-tuk moved at a sedate 30km/h (20MPH), so we had time to see things, and our guide had time to explain things. One thing we really liked was the fact that our guide did not fire off names and dates at a high rate of knots, rather he described more of the history of the area, and it’s role in modern day Bucharest / Romania.

Communism played a big part in the history of the country after WW2 under Nicolae Ceausescu. In the true spirit of Communism equality he destroyed many thousands of homes in the south of Budapest to build himself a small home.

1100 rooms later it was completed! There are seven underground levels as well!

In front of the building is a square where the people were meant to gather to hear the speeches from Ceausescu, this never happened as he was arrested and executed before it was completed.

Today there was a small protest there urging Romanians to come out and vote in there elections this Sunday. You can see a few people in National Dress, if you have good eyesight and imagination!

Leading away from the building is the Bulevardul Unirii, in the centre are 44 fountain arrangements, all of which are synchronised for water displays.

At the far end is a large pool, again with many fountains. Weekly a new light and water show is put on in the evenings.

Looking back to the palace from the pool area

A new Cathedral was started in 2010 on the grounds next to the Parliament building. The primary religion here is Romanian Orthodox (not related to either Greek or Russian churches) with 85% of the population following it.

After WW1 Romania gained land as a result of many battles. The King at the time wanted to build a monument to celebrate this and to unite the country. Does it look familiar?

There was also a monument built to WW1 Pilots

A monument to WW1 pilots

Within the first few months after the fall of Communism, the first western advert appeared in Romania!!

In front of the glass building (a hotel) the front entrance of the old National Theatre has been restored. The rest of the building was destroyed in WW2 bombings. The target was in fact the white building to the left which was left undamaged.

Again, Communism equality at work. Built by Ceausescu, the white building on the right was a hotel for important communist party visitors, on the left a typical apartment building for the workers. Many of these buildings have now been declared as structurally unsafe following the earthquake of 1990.

All in all this was the perfect trip to take, not too much information, but much more was available if you asked for it!

Time for more travelling and new countries! Unfortunately I had a bad cough/cold a couple of weeks ago that I have just recovered from, but Lyn is still suffering from a lingering cough. Hopefully this will disappear in the next day or so.

The trip started with an Uber from home to the Ottawa Rail Station to catch …… a coach! Since Greyhound Canada bit the dust, there is no mainline bus terminus in the city, they use the train station instead. As a result the signage isn’t that great. A coach arrived at around the right time so we followed about 50 other people to line up for it. There seemed to be a few more people than there were seats! When the driver checked our tickets he shook his head and said the Airline coach is the one behind! We sheepishly headed to that coach, noting there was a small sign on a pole identifying it as the correct coach. There were only about 10 people on it! We got to Montreal and checked in, amazingly the aircraft was on time as it was over an hour late coming in from Amsterdam due to a “last minute technical repair”

Once on the aircraft, operated by KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) I was amazed to find everything was in English, passenger announcements, signage and even the safety video. No Dutch and no French. Airlines in Canada have to be fully English and French and risk lawsuits if they are not!

The crew’s English was excellent, as was their attitude and service, very impressed. Even the Captain came back and introduced himself prior to start-up. At the end of the flight we were each given a Delft pottery house filled with Dutch gin! Delft is a Dutch town famous for its blue pottery. The KLM Delft houses have been a tradition for a number of years with 103 different models!

We had a 90 minute connection in Amsterdam, which was just about enough as it was the early morning rush and immigration was busy. We had a 2.5 hour flight to Bucharest which went fine, then an Uber to the hotel. We grabbed a quick nap at the hotel and then went for a short walk around the area, managing to grab a geocache in the process. We were also looking for a place to eat later in the evening as the hotel only has a Sushi bar.

I have no idea why this bear was plastered over the roof of an old Fiat 500, but it made for a photo-op!

Tomorrow, health permitting we’ll do a little more touring in the city.

Still at the airport, only 5 hours to go before take off!! The lounge is good, restaurant, buffet, drinks and most important a shower!

So the trip is essentially complete; was it worth it? Certainly, new countries, new cultures and maybe a few too many new temples. Our brains hurt from all the new information we tried to absorb.

Would we do it again? Probably not. We underestimated a few things on this trip, number one being the effect of the heat and humidity. It wasn’t just the odd day, it was every day. The temperatures averaged around 32C (90F) and humidity in the mid 90% range. It saps your energy while walking around the different areas. The full, 9+ hour days really took a toll. When we had a few hours spare, it was great to kick back in the A/C or the pool, BUT there was always this voice in the back of the mind saying “you’ve come al this way, you should be doing more than lazing around”.

Kensington Tours, the group who organised this did a good job (thanks Dave), we only had a couple of small hiccups where we had an issue finding our guide at the airport. The hotels we stayed in ranged from good to fantastic.

So, what do we do in future? I suspect we may lean more towards cruises, especially for countries where the culture and or driving is way different to what we are used too. I would not have liked to drive on this trip; 40 years ago I would have considered driving here a “fun” experience!!

We are considering a trip to Scotland in the spring for a family birthday and possibly a side trip to the Scottish Islands. Next fall looks as though it could be a cruise around Japan and maybe a stop somewhere on the flight out. Hawaii remains the only state we haven’t visited.

In the meantime we’ll have about 9 weeks at home before heading down to Alabama for 3 months.

Hopefully, if anyone did read the blog, it gave an insight into the trip. I am getting lazy with the descriptions, but the pictures may be interesting to some.

Our guide suggested we switch our itinerary around today, which we agreed to. Originally we were to continue our city tour in the morning and then be picked up from the hotel around 3PM to go to the airport. The only problem with that plan was that we had to checkout at noon, which was not too good. Now we are being picked up later in the morning, then going straight to the airport. This gave us a bit of free time, so we headed out after breakfast to see the Raffles Hotel (link here)

Heading out of the hotel we found a company that offers city tours with an old Vespa scooter and side car.

Raffles was slightly out of our league with rooms starting around $3500 a night and breakfast around $80!

We were picked up at 1230 by our guide and taken to the old port area where all the trading ships docked in previous centuries. The area has been cleaned up a lot recently, but the facades of the buildings remain as they were. The river has also been cleaned up, and is now restricted to electric boats.

We took a trip on a bumboat around the area, the name bumboat describes the small boats that used to ferry provisions from shore to the larger boats at anchor.

Whampoas Ice House was one of those brilliant ideas that wasn’t thought through very well. The plan was to collect ice from Alaska and ship it to Singapore so the ex-pats could enjoy ice in their drinks. Unfortunately all that arrived in Singapore was warm water! The business collapsed after two years!

Form the boat we headed back to the van for a short trip into China Town

We then visited a newer temple

Next it was lunch time in the local market, our guide ordered a mix of dishes for us.

In the China town area we also discovered a Hindu temple with a very colourful tower .

After a little more wandering it was time to head out to the airport for the flight to Doha. This was a seven and a quarter hour flight arriving around 10pm local time. There was a lot of turbulence for most of the flight, but I still managed around 3 hours of sleep. Unfortunately we couldn’t avoid a long layover in Doha, our flight to Montreal doesn’t leave until 8:20AM, so we have 10 hours to wait. Luckily the lounge is open 24 hours a day.

I’ll probably write a quick summary in the next day or so.

We met our guide after breakfast for a city tour. Like many of the places we have seen there is a mix of religions and cultures all living happily together.

As our guide put it, Singapore is very much a rule based country. There are many rules, most of which are just common sense / courtesy e.g. don’t litter, be polite, clear your table if you’re at a fast food place or street side eating area. The difference between Singapore and many Western countries, that also have rules, is that Singapore will enforce them, either through fines, jail time or caning. It works; the place is clean and safe. We need to bring back some discipline in the West, regardless of the views of the tree huggers and others of their ilk. Ok, rant off!!

We started in Little Arabia. Again, mostly pictures!

These bottles were collected from the poorer Muslims in the area. The gold ball represents the wealth of the rich, the soy bottles the poor. They are both incorporated in the design to try and show equality among the people, if not the wealth.

As we were walking along the car above parked. It was a 1983 Panther Kallista made by Westwinds Panther in Surrey UK.

In Singapore they believe all people should have the right to a decent lifestyle. Above is a poor shot of a high rise apartment block. About 80% of the population live in this type of dwelling. The size of the apartment is determined by the size of the family,the cost of the apartment will never be more than 35% of the family income. This lifestyle has come a long way in stopping violence and vandalism within the country. Beneath the apartment buildings are markets and food stalls, so the whole complex is like a small town. Again it seems to work very well.

After driving around a few more areas of the city, we were off to the botanical gardens. I took many photos here, if I was “templed” out before, I was “flowered” out after this. If you need more info on the flowers, I suggest you consult google lens!!

There’s still about 50 more to show, but I’ll spare you.

Singapore is a mix of the old and the new, as we saw from visits to little Arabia and India. In those areas life is very similar to what we have seen in other countries on this trip. On the other hand, the majority of Singapore is the complete opposite, very modern, well maintained and interesting in it’s own right. In my mind you could class some of the places 3rd world compared to Singapore, but likewise I would suggest many western (and North American) cities could rate as second world compared to Singapore (puts on flak jacket and standing by for incoming!!)

After getting back from the tour, we headed out to find a geocache, we were successful, it was the first one we had found for some time. We also decided to go up to the roof top to see the view. Disappointment followed! I thought we had done well getting the 30th floor; the elevator only went to 36 floors. This time we got a different elevator, it went to floor 70! Once there the area was closed for a private function, although from what we could see, the view wasn’t too much different from ours.

Tonight we’ll head back down for some more local food. Tomorrow is our last day, we’ll be visiting other parts of the city as well as going on a bumboat ride, whatever that is!

After breakfast we met our guide at 0800 for the trip to the airport for our flight to Singapore. The trip was uneventful, and again we got served a hot meal on a 90 minute flight with free beer and wine. North American airlines take note, it can be done!

All the immigration at Singapore was automated, with a few officers around to help if there were problems. We had no delays at all with the process, and as we walked over to the baggage claim, there was my bag. Lyn’s was four behind it. Again North American airlines take note, it can be done!

We had a panic moment as we exited customs, again there was no one holding a board with our name on it! Fortunately within half a minute some one came up and introduced himself to us, I was a little nervous but saw our names and tour company name on his phone so all was OK.

We headed out to the hotel, again driving on the “correct” side of the road. It was so different to the other countries, nice wide and uncrowded roads with no kamikaze scooters. At the hotel, check in again was automated with help available.

We were soon on our way to the room. The room was great and the view even better. We were on the 30th floor. Pictures to follow

After settling into the room for a while, we headed out to the “basement” area, which is full of restaurants that serve meals at a much more reasonable price than the hotel!!

We travel half way around the world and what do we find:

Apart from Marks and Sparks (British department store), there have been numerous sightings of 7-11’s (corner store on steroids) in most of the countries.

Having surveyed the restaurants earlier, we headed back in the evening in search of food. We found somewhere on our third attempt! The restaurants tended to be Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Korean, Thai or Subway. We settled on a Thai Noodle house. Automation ruled again, we had to scan a QR code to get the menu and order. After a few futile attempts where I seem to have ordered all the food in the restaurant, we managed to order what we wanted with a little help from a bemused waiter!

After filling ourselves with a tasty meal we headed back to the room to view the city at night.

We’re off touring tomorrow morning at a reasonable hour, 0930!!!